


Time

by Mrs Gordo (MrsGordo)



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/M, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-16 19:44:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16501565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsGordo/pseuds/Mrs%20Gordo
Summary: Too much time had passed. And now, there was none left.





	Time

**Author's Note:**

> Set some years after NFA.

_She used to think that the most powerful force in this world was love. It was the one thing that clung to your soul and never let you go. Love had devastated her and inspired her. She had always felt it was an inescapable force._

*

Buffy smiled. She could see the demon in her sights and it was completely unaware of her presence. She jumped down on him and twisted his head swiftly until she heard a crack. The demon dropped to the ground. She gave Spike a smug look. “See, I told you we could get this done before dinner.”

A moment later, her cell phone rang. The screen flashed Faith’s name. Faith never called her. Sure, she would call Giles when business came up. Her stomach knotted. She looked up at Spike who was staring back at her with a puzzled look.

Buffy’s scythe dropped to the ground as a terrible feeling washed over her. “It’s Angel.” She whispered.

_Angel?_

*

Willow opened a portal and she and Buffy arrived on the scene within minutes. Buffy immediately spotted Faith sitting on the ground. She had her head up against a brick wall and her knees were drawn up under her chin. She was shaking, covered in blood and bruises. But at least she was alive. Buffy fought off the twinge of resentment. 

“Buffy… I -” Faith started, her voice was broken and desperate. Buffy could see her eyes were red and swollen.

“Where?” Buffy cut her off.

Faith pointed down the alley. There were dead demons splayed all around them in what had obviously been a large battle. It was dark and hard to see. Buffy’s eyes scanned the area and she saw his broadsword. Next to it, all that was left of him. His ashes. 

She walked slowly over and kneeled beside his remains.

When her mother had died there had been a body. She knew the body wasn’t really her mother. She knew that the body was merely a corpse that resembled the woman she had loved so dearly. But she had been able to look at her mother’s eyes, her nose, her mouth. She had imagined her mother smiling at her. Her mother’s laugh. Her mother’s kisses.

But nothing was left of Angel. She couldn’t see his hands and imagine how they felt when she held them. Or look at his lips and recall how they felt on hers. He had told her a hundred different times that he wasn’t human and, sure a part of her knew it was true, but she had truly never imagined that his bright soul would be reduced to dust.

Her chest tightened and she felt a growing rage. How could Angel be reduced to this? How could he look no different than the ashes of the thousands of ordinary vampires she had slayed in her life. It wasn’t right.

Faith slowly approached and placed her hand on Buffy’s back.

When Buffy felt Faith’s hand she shot up immediately, turned towards Faith with a look of indignation. “Don’t touch me! How could you let this happen? How many times did Angel protect you? How many times did he stand up for you? And you … you let him … you let this demon turn him into…” Buffy couldn’t finish her thoughts.. 

“Fuck you.” Faith shouted back. She shoved Buffy back. “You think you’re alone in this? You think you are the only one hurting? He was my _family_. I loved him. I tried to…” Faith shook her head, trying to forget the sight of her friend’s death. “- But it was too late...I got here too late.” Faith’s wounds were still raw. 

A crash of thunder sounded. It was followed by a slow trickle of rain droplets. Buffy looked up towards the sky as the rainfall grew heavier, faster, thicker. Buffy looked back at Faith in panic. 

“Oh God...no.” Buffy turned back towards Angel’s remains and knelt down. “Help me!” Buffy shouted as she was frantically grasped at the ashes and heaped them on to her flipped up shirt. But the rain was coming faster and faster and the ashes were slowly being washed away. Buffy desperately struggled for purchase of the muddy remains. “Faith you have to help me… _please_. He can’t just … disappear.” Buffy pleaded.

Faith kneeled down next to Buffy. She remembered another dark and rainy night when she was prepared to end her life. When Angel had held her and refused to give up on her. She shook her head helplessly. “He’s gone, Buffy. This isn’t him.”

Buffy stopped scrambling and sat back on her heels. She let her arms fall to her side. She slowly looked up into Faith’s eyes as realization set in. That part of her soul that had always felt his presence was empty. And this broke her. She clutched her hands into fists and felt the gritty wet ashes in between her fingers. 

“I didn’t tell him. Last time I saw him - I didn’t tell him that I loved him. It didn’t seem -,” Buffy swallowed hard against the knot forming in her throat. “It felt like it wasn’t the right time to say it. With the end of the world and - everything going on. So I - I didn’t - tell him. And now -” Buffy’s tears began to fall and mixed with the rain pouring down on her. “I loved him more than anything in this life. And I never got to tell him that.”

Faith wrapped her arms around Buffy. They leaned on each other. They sat in the rain and wept as all that remained of Angel was washed away by rain.

_Are you leaving me?_

*

When Buffy awoke, she smelled him all around her. She wore one of his soft black shirts that felt smooth against her bare skin. The shirt and the sheets, the whole room, had his familiar scent of the earthiness of sandalwood and clean soap. She remembered waking up to this smell like it was yesterday. 

Strangely she remembered how just last Thursday she had been sitting in a waiting room for a dentist appointment. She had grabbed a Time magazine from the table and was skimming through an article about memory. It said that the sense of smell is the sense most closely linked to memory. Buffy inhaled deeply. She wanted to remember everything. Every little detail and recreate it all in her mind. Last Thursday Angel had been here, maybe sleeping on this bed. She could have come to him then. She could’ve walked out of that dentist’s office and come straight over here. She could’ve come to him a million times but she hadn’t. 

In her mind, there was always tomorrow. She could come to him tomorrow or the next day or the day after that. And if she was honest with herself, she never doubted for a second that she would be back here. But she never imagined it would be like this. In his bed with only the scent of his memory as company. And now all she could think was how long it had been since she had seen him or touched him or kissed him. Too long - she decided. Too many losses, lovers, deaths, and apocalypses ago. Too much time had passed. And now there was none left.

_Am I still your girl?_

*

She found Willow sitting on a couch looking out the window with a cup of tea. Her eyes were slightly pink when she turned to look at Buffy. “Buffy - I didn’t want to wake you…”

“It’s OK Will...I’m up. So -” Buffy began to pace the room and fidget with her hands. “What’s the plan. We need to get everyone to research. _Full_ research mode. I know Dawn will help. And maybe you can reach out to the coven and -” Buffy rambled.

Willow furrowed her brow. “- Buffy.” She cut her off mid-sentence. “Sit down with me.” Buffy swallowed hard, took a breath and sat on the couch. Willow continued. “I understand, you know. When Tara died -” 

Buffy sat up abruptly. “No. This is… different. Angel died fighting the forces of evil! Plus - he - he died before and he came back. I _killed_ him and he came back to me. And…” It was true. There had been another time she had cried herself to sleep dreaming of his smell and his touch. Another time he had been dead to this world. She had run him through with a sword and he had come back to her. If he could come back from that surely he could come back from this.

“This is different Buffy and you know it. He was in a hell dimension last time - body, demon and soul. Now, well there is no body. His demon is gone. And - his soul, it’s been released - we can’t -”

“It’s not like you haven’t before.” Buffy said through gritted teeth. Unshed tears pricked at the corners of her eyes.

Willow sighed. “And that’s exactly why we can’t. And you know it, Buffy. You’re just too hurt right now to see it.”

Buffy sat in silence. She knew Willow was right. And she knew if Angel’s soul had really moved on she didn’t want to drag him away from a peaceful rest - the way she had been forced back. She knew all of these things but her heart was far too broken to really understand them. She just wanted him back. 

_Where did you go?_

*

It was a misty night and the fog in the air made it hard to see. But she knew this cemetery well. Had patrolled it hundreds of times. Could have walked it in her sleep. But she wasn’t hunting tonight. She was in a dress, a long white dress, it was the one she had worn when she first died. The dress was the same but she, she was different. The dress didn’t fit the same. It hugged her curves in different ways. She wasn’t sixteen anymore. 

“I really like your dress.” A smooth silky voice said from behind her. She smiled then at the immediate recognition of his familiar voice. Angel wrapped his arms around her waist and she leaned back into him instinctually. 

“Angel.” She whispered to him. She let him rock her a bit. He felt like comfort. That’s what he had always felt like to her. Like her favorite blanket. “I couldn’t find you. I thought you were gone.”

“Shh.” She felt him kiss the top of her head and he held her tighter still. “I’ll always be with you.” He said.

When Buffy awoke she felt empty. Hallowed out at her very core. She felt like a small part of her was gone. Angel had taken this with him, wherever he was. She closed her eyes and prayed for sleep that never came.

_Did forever work for you?_

*

“We have nothing to bury.” Connor said in a hushed tone. He sat on the couch next to Buffy. The apartment was so quiet it was deafening. But in the distance, Buffy could hear the sound of birds chirping outside and cars passing by. It was irritating that life could go on as if nothing had happened. Had this world not realized how different it was now? One its faithful soldiers, gone.

“What would he have wanted?” Buffy asked.

“He’d want-” Connor thought for a moment. He gave a small smile and his eyes got misty. “He’d want us to go on with our lives. To keep fighting. Find happiness.”

“I can’t do that right now.” Buffy shook her head. “I can’t be happy. He’s gone and it feels wrong. It feels like I’m betraying him or forgetting him.”

Connor hesitantly found Buffy’s hand and squeezed it. They had only met on a few occasions but at this moment he felt close to her in their grief. “I think maybe not all at once, but with time, we work towards that. And when we do, we will be honoring him, not betraying him. Isn’t that all he ever wanted for us? For you and me to find happiness? Even if it meant finding happiness without him around?”

Buffy nodded slightly. “God even in death he’s stubborn,” Buffy said with a small laugh and tears in her eyes.

_Give me time._

*

He had lived nearly two hundred fifty years plus another hundred in hell. She had only shared three years with him at his side. It was just the blink of an eye really.

She had always known time was a limited commodity for her. She was, after all, mortal and her line of work left something to be desired. One wrong swing, one overly ambitious vampire or demon was all it would take. 

But not him. He was eternal. She thought he would always be there. It wasn’t every day. It wasn’t even every week. But every now and then she would allow herself the luxury of thinking that far ahead. She would see his face, still young, with his crooked little smile and his warm chocolate brown eyes. She had time. Time to bake and fight and raise an army. He would be there when the time was right. 

She grabbed a few of Angel’s shirts, the ones that smelled especially like him. She stuffed them in a bag. She threw the bag over her shoulder and grabbed Angel’s favorite broadsword. She turned back towards his room and allowed herself one last look. And she saw it all in that moment. Just what her life could have been with him. She thought of late nights listening to him read sonnets from long-dead poets in his silky voice. She thought of the weight and the feel of his body covering hers as he made love to her. And of soft kisses at the crown of her head as she fell asleep in his arms. And then she turned away from it all. She left the room and closed the door behind her.

_It wasn’t enough time._

*

_She used to think that the most powerful force in this world was love. That with love on her side she would always have the possibility of tomorrow. She knew now she had been wrong. The most powerful and immovable force in this world is time._


End file.
